Tracking Tolkien

We have had an amazing climb up Mount Mulanje, the tallest mountain in central Africa. We climbed up it two weeks ago taking advantage of a statutory holiday to give us the time to do it. The mountain is an amazing site as you approach it due to the fact that it rises out of a completely flat plain. There are no foothill or gradual slopes that lead to the mountain and it is not part of a mountain chain. This type of geologic feature is called an inselberg which is German for island mountain which is a very apt description. The mountain was quite a stiff hike but it didn’t take any mountain climbing skills. The peak of Mulanje is at 3002 m above sea level which puts it quite a bit below Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania which is 5895 m above sea level but it is impressive nonetheless. One of the huts we stayed in has a view outside of it of Chambe peak which has a 1.7 km vertical rock face, the highest cliff in Africa. Mulanje is significantly higher than our previously highest climbed peak, Mt. Washington in New Hampshire which is 1917 m above sea level.
The views are unbelievable and the scenery continually takes on a different look as you round a peak or enter into another valley. As you rise from a plain you travel through various stages of vegetation until you are above the tree level where only lichen is precariously clinging to the rock. Clouds continually move in shrouding everything in an eerie mist and dropping visibility quite low but then the wind will blow the mist away and you will be treated to what one traveler early in the twentieth century called the best view in the British Empire. J.R.R. Tolkein climbed Mt. Mulanje shortly before he wrote The Hobbit and local legend has it that Mulanje inspired him. The rivers that flow off of the mountain travel through the surrounding plain until they join the largest river in Malawi, the Shire.
The hiking was tiring but well worth it. The first night we stayed at a hut at the base of Sapitwa peak which in ChiChewa means “don’t go there”. Before we left our day guard at our house pulled me aside and told me that it was ok to go to Mulanje but that we must not go to Sapitwa. Sapitwa, and Mulanje as a whole is considered by some Malawians as the basis of all bad magic and witchcraft in the country. It is considered a realm of evil spirits and a place dangerous to visit. Our guard, Grant warned me that the influence and power of evil spirits is strong still on Sapitwa and that people who climb it have been known to disappear. So after staying the night in a hut at the base of Sapitwa the first thing we did was attempt to commune with the spirits (no , I don’t mean we had a séance, just that we attempted to climb the peak). After 3 hours of climbing though we had to regroup, analyse the situation and we realized that we weren’t equipped to climb the peak. While all the earlier travel on Mulanje was just hiking despite its difficulty Sapitwa entered the realm of climbing with a large proportion of smearing involved. One group that we met stated that they were only able to make to the peak using the climbing rope that they had brought so our decision to turn around was a good one despite Regan’s disappointment. She was climbing without any problems and had be been properly equipped she would have had no problem claiming the peak. After that we hiked to another hut, which was at the base of the earlier mentioned cliff and spent another night. The next day we hiked down and returned home.
The whole experience was magical despite the lack of spirits. As well I kept my eyes pealed for the elusive Abatwa, light skinned people of extremely short stature who are whispered to still be on the mountain. In actuality there is some truth behind this legend as when the Bantu people first migrated into Malawi over a 1000 years ago the land was already occupied by the Abatwa people. There are still remnants of these people in Africa but not in Malawi. The pygmies of the Congo and the Kalahari bushmen of Botswana are the remnants of this once widespread people. Their features are very different from the larger, darker skinned Bantu tribes who now cover the majority of sub-Saharan Africa.For anyone who is visiting Malawi I highly recommend Mt. Mulanje, even if it is just to drive to see it as it is spectacular.